The move is part of Trinity Mirror's attempt to fight the sales slide at the paper, as the tabloid hovers dangerously close to the 2m mark.
The paper has experimented in recent times running issues without the red, where the white Mirror logo has blended into black full-page photo editions. These editions did not, as some feared, result in a drop of sales.
The move follows the paper's post-September 11 drive to embrace serious journalism and move away from blanket celebrity news and gossip. The paper has won many plaudits from commentators for its coverage of the war in Afghanistan.
As part of the paper's drive upmarket, editor Piers Morgan has recently recruited "serious" journalists such as John Pilger, Christopher Hitchens, Matthew Norman and Jonathan Freedland to contribute to the paper.
In recent years, the Mirror has lost some of its readers to mid-market tabloid the Daily Mail, which overtook the Mirror in circulations terms last year.
It is hoped the move away from red-top journalism could win some of these readers back.
Its exit from the red-top market leaves The Sun and the Daily Star, which under Richard Desmond is growing in confidence and circulation, to slug it out.
Desmond's flagging Daily Express could be another target for the Mirror as it moves upmarket. The Express under Desmond has suffered and its readership has continued to slip, falling well below the 1m mark.
The move away from the red top comes as Joe Sinyor, a former Sony and Dillons executive who joined Trinity Mirror 18 months ago, unveils a new strategy for the group. The strategy is not just about the Mirror, but about the group as a whole and will focus some degree on integrating the Mirror's national newspapers, and its string of regionals, with Trinity's regional papers. Three years after the merger of Mirror Group and Trinity, this work has still to be completed.
According to reports, if Sinyor's plans are successful he will be in with a chance of succeeding Philip Graf as chief executive of Trinity Mirror.
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